Only if for a Night
by Dracoqueen22
Summary: G1. Because Ratchet once asked, and Sideswipe has never forgotten that novelty. Or that honor. (SideswipexRatchet)


**Title: Only if for a Night**

**Universe: G1**

**Characters: RatchetxSideswipe**

**Rating: M**

**Warnings: tactile/energy field, angst**

**Description: Because Ratchet once asked, and Sideswipe has never forgotten that novelty. Or that honor. **

**For tf-rare-pairings weekly prompt of Ratchet/Sideswipe, get what you need**

* * *

He sneaks in late at night, so late that it's almost dawn, almost a new day.

Most of the Ark is still and silent, now that the battle has passed, the wounded are recovering, and everyone can breathe for a short while.

He avoids the cameras with practiced ease, spark a quiet flutter in his chassis. There is anticipation here. Reluctance, too. A dichotomy of emotions.

Attachment must not be born for everyone's sake. It is easier said than done even if he had not made this post-battle ritual a definite thing.

Sometimes, attachment becomes the reason he fights.

And sometimes, it is a burden too heavy to bear.

Machines quietly beep and whirr, stalwart sentinels overseeing the healing warriors.

They didn't lose anyone this time. There weren't any major injuries, no stretching of already strained resources.

That does not mean the battle was without cost.

His destination is the back room, little more than a cubicle with a recharge berth. Necessity has turned it into a fairly inadequate berthroom. But, he supposes, it is better than nothing to the worrying spark that can't bear to be far from his recovering patients.

The door opens to his access ID, inviting him into a dark room. A lighter blotch in the dim shifts on the berth, systems shifting out of standby with an audible thrum.

"It's me," he says, though who else would it be?

The old berth creaks. "What took you so long?"

It's all the invitation he needs. There are barely three steps to the berth and he climbs into it, only to be immediately pulled into a crushing embrace.

Any smart-aft retort dies on his glossa.

"Shhh," he says, hissing air from his vents. "You know the score. Take what you need."

A helm tucks beneath his chin, careful of the pointy end of a chevron, and puffs of ventilation tease at his neck cables. "There will come a time when you won't want to say that."

"Never," he says, perhaps a bit too fervently and too quickly. His tone dangerously approaches attachment.

A bitter chuckle bubbles up beneath him, vibrating their frames. "Easy to make that promise. Not so easy to keep it."

He brings up one arm, wrapping it around a broad chassis, broader than his own. The other hand curves around his berthmate's helm, feeling the snap-crackle of electric need and emotions churning beneath the surface of an iron will.

Ratchet is not one to surrender or submit, not even to his own fear or doubts.

Even iron has a breaking point. Some day, that will is going to crack. Even the smallest of fissures will be devastating.

It is Sideswipe's responsibility to ensure that never happens, the only duty he has ever embraced without complaint.

"There is a difference," Sideswipe says, "between a vow broken by choice and a promise ended without consent."

The emotional churning worsens. The embrace tightens until frontliner-strong armor creaks, groans, and buckles.

"You should go."

"You say that every time and here I am again." Sideswipe unfurls his energy field by degrees, leaving himself open.

More crackles dance over his fingertips, surging from beneath his plating, out of his substructure. The frame wrapped around his trembles before the shudders subside.

"One time, you won't."

Ratchet, too, comes perilously close to implying attachment.

"I'm too stubborn for that," Sideswipe retorts with the narrowest edge of a smirk.

"The Pit would spit you back out," Ratchet agrees, static obscuring the last syllable. A spiraling fracture advances through the iron will.

"You should know," Sideswipe says. "You've pulled me from it more times than I can count."

Silence.

A ventilation, in and out.

Sideswipe's field hovers, open and waiting, sensing the maelstrom and yearning to soothe it. There is a battle here, and not one he can engage with reckless abandon for once.

Prowl would be proud.

Ratchet shifts, helm tilting, and his lips brush Sideswipe's neck cables. "You are a pain in my aft," he hisses.

His energy field opens, like a gate thrown wide, and Sideswipe is bombarded by darkness. Grief and worry and anger and desperation and spark-searing fear. It is a yawning abyss of despair, lacking the most distant blip of hope. Such has been buried by a flood of spilled energon, fried circuits, and gray frames.

Most mechs would instantly shield themselves against all that darkness, lest it infect their own core.

Sideswipe welcomes it, embraces it, draws it into his own and absorbs it, like a black hole taking and giving nothing back. The darkness thrashes, furious at finding defiance rather than a victim.

He groans, pleasure and pain, locking it down. Later, he will expel it. He'll make Sunstreaker spar with him. Or he'll prank Cliffjumper. Or let the police chase him all down the highways at top speed. Or the Decepticons will attack and he'll throw himself headfirst.

Because Sideswipe has learned how to release his anger and Ratchet only knows how to shunt it aside, bury it deep.

Now, Ratchet huffs a vent, shifting against Sideswipe. Their fields are perfectly synced, pulsing in tune, and that harmony evokes pleasure in place of the discord.

Ratchet's lips travel a searing path to Sideswipe's, his hold easing to an embrace, plating sliding together in tantalizing bursts of static.

Sideswipe shudders, a moan pulled from the depths of his chassis. His spark throbs, energy field pulsing in tune to Ratchet's. Charge lights up the room, dancing out from beneath their armor. Pleasure lights up his sensor net, so strong he could get overcharged from it.

Overload strikes them in tandem, a wave of bliss that crashes over Sideswipe from helm to pede. He can taste it on his glossa, feel it in the charge crackling along his fingertips. Heat pulses from his core; cooling fans click on with a telling whirr.

Ratchet slumps, spent, his frame humming against Sideswipe's, relaxation tangible in the easing of his hold.

Sideswipe should withdraw his fields, but he is reluctant to do so. There's a calm purr to Ratchet now, less doom and despair and more the irascible Hatchet the Autobots all know and love. Besides, Sideswipe likes this, the closeness, even though he shouldn't. Even though it is vulnerable.

Ratchet's field buzzes with contentment, with a fracture restored. "Anyone ever tell you that you're crazy?" he asks, vocals a rough purr that tingles down Sideswpe's backstrut.

"All the time," Sideswipe replies with a cheeky grin. "Usually, it's you or Prowl."

Ratchet's laugh is barely a hiccup, but genuine in its amusement.

"Or Prime," Sideswipe amends, if only to hear Ratchet laugh again. "Sometimes, Sunny. And Jazz. Cliffjumper on a daily basis. Skyfire just last week."

Here, Ratchet tilts his helm, optics turning befuddled. "Skyfire?"

"I thought he needed a new paint job." Sideswipe traces the red cross on Ratchet's shoulders, watching light static ripple over white plating. "We disagreed."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"That's probably for the best."

Silence. It leans toward awkward, only because they both know Sideswipe ought to leave, but Sideswipe's not doing so and Ratchet's not asking him to.

Sideswipe counts Ratchet's ventilations, memorizes the distinct hum of Ratchet's systems. He knows he needs to get up and leave. The reluctance sets in, as has become frequent lately.

Just once, Sideswipe would like to stay.

The suggestion is on the tip of his glossa but Sideswipe, who never hesitates when it comes to battle or pranks or staring down Prowl, delays himself for a fraction of a second.

In the space of that indecision, Ratchet's console beeps. One of his patients are stirring and though not a one of them are in critical or serious condition, Ratchet would not ignore them.

"It's Smokescreen," Ratchet says, wirelessly tapping into his system.

"And that's my cue," Sideswipe says, lips quirked in a grin, a levity that doesn't travel to his core. But he's already drawn his fields, unraveled himself from Ratchet, and what the medic cannot see, cannot feel, he can't know.

Sideswipe frees himself from Ratchet's arms and slides off the berth, stabilizers a bit wobbly from the powerful overload. He takes a moment to orientate himself and startles when warm fingers encircle his upper arm.

"I don't say it enough," Ratchet says, his tone clipped and gruff and Sideswipe doesn't dare turn around, look him in the optics. "But Primus knows I need to."

He almost doesn't want to hear it. "That's not why I come, Ratchet."

Sideswipe expects a question, a plaintive demand for an explanation. _Why?_ And a lie forms, slowly and carefully, because he doesn't know the answer. Well, he _didn't_ know the answer, but he does now and he'll run from the room before he gives it.

"I know," Ratchet says instead. "But I'm saying thank you anyway."

A shudder crawls down Sideswipe's backstrut and he cycles a quiet ventilation. He places his hand over Ratchet's, gently loosing the medic's grip.

"You should stick to what you're better at," Sideswipe says, trying for humor and hoping Ratchet doesn't read anything else. "Gratitude doesn't suit."

Ratchet's console beeps again.

Sideswipe slides his fingers free. "You're being summoned."

"I noticed."

He can feel Ratchet's optics, like lasers on his spine, and Sideswipe offers a backward wave. "Catch ya later, Ratch."

It is less than three steps to the door. Sideswipe makes it without further contact or comment from Ratchet, though he is tense from helm to pede from anticipation. He sneaks out of the medbay in the same manner in which he arrived, chronometer informing him that dawn has come and with it, shift change.

It is a new day with all the same hurts as the ones before it. But Sideswipe smiles anyway because Sunstreaker is probably still recharging and Sideswipe has a can of spray paint in his subspace. The resulting roar of anger and tackle to the ground will be the perfect outlet for his frustrations, and Sunstreaker should be used to this by now anyway.

It's the same routine, over and over again.

And if Sideswipe dares hope that it might change in the future, well, that's his secret to keep and no one else's.

* * *

a/n: Yes, I'm a sucker for Ratchet with either twin, seperately or together. So I take this prompts and leap on them.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated.


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